Blogging time table for part time blogger

Are you struggling to manage time for your blogging work? Always finding yourself short of time?

Well, you are not alone.

Blogging is a tricky job. It requires attention on so many fronts that it becomes difficult to do equal justice to all. More so if you are a part time blogger, who has to juggle his day job with blogging related work. Then it becomes really hard to manage. Unless…..

You have a definite PLAN.

Last week I was reading a post on Problogger where Darren has written about one of his commenter’s problems. Steve’s problem was with managing time for his blog. He seemed to have a really hard time in balancing his promotional activities and content creation. His problem struck me. I understood hoe difficult it is to manage time for your blog.

You MUST have a definite BLOGGING SCHEDULE.

Without a definite plan, it is easy to spend all your time without achieving much.

Here I am going to give an idea about how much time you need to spend on each activity and how to achieve more in less time.

The 3 parts of blogging related work

Blogging related work revolves around 3 main domains:

Content creation

Promotion and Networking

Maintenance

How much time to allot to each part?

Schedule for part time bloggers

Content is the cornerstone of your blog. Without content, there is no blog. There is no use of any traffic. Allocate 60% of your time for content creation and related activities.

You may have content but what about visitors? Promoting your blog and networking with fellow bloggers is what gives you exposure and as well as visitors. Allocate 30% of your time for these activities.

You can utilize rest of the time for maintenance work (explained below).

How much time should a part time blogger spend on blogging?

For a part time blogger with a day job, I would say, work 2-3 hours a day at most. More than that and you would be doing pseudowork – waste of time. Here are a few tips I would like to share:

Work at a time you feel productive. Depending on your preference, you can work in early morning or late evening.

Minimize distractions during work.

Take break for 10 minutes after every 50 minutes of work. It will help you gain focus.

Create less but quality content. I focus on writing only one quality post a week. It is better than 2-3 rehashed pieces.

Be disciplined. Stick to your blogging schedule.

Have a blogging schedule or timetable.

Blogging timetable for part time bloggers

Here is a sample blogging timetable that works quite well for me . If you are struggling with time management, give it a try.

Sunday – writing day

Although Sunday is a holiday, the blogging workweek begins on this day. The idea behind it is simple.

To write a quality post, you need to be at your creative best. You need to be fully alert and productive. On workdays, it is hard to be creative after the day’s work. But Sunday is a holiday, and you have the whole day in your hands.

Choose your most productive time and write the draft copy of your next post. You should already have the topic and outline in your hand (it is created the week before). On Sunday, give your full focus on creating quality content.

Monday – editing day

On Monday, edit your draft post and make the final copy. Make sure you do the following.

Ensure proper formatting of your post.

Add captions to your images.

Add the tags and category.

Set the SEO options including appropriate title, description and keywords.

Once you are done with editing, don’t forget to preview it. If everything seems right, hit the publish button.

After you have published, share your post on social bookmarking sites and social networks if you like. Or you can leave it for the next day.

Tuesday – promotion and networking day

Promotion

On Tuesday, take time to promote your blog post. Bookmark your post on social bookmarking sites and share your post on social networks, if you have not done that already.

Google other posts relevant to your post and leave meaningful comments. Leave a link in the comment if it adds value to the post. Do not spam.

Try to promote by other means too, such as pitching your post to some fellow blogger (make sure your content is high quality and unique enough to benefit the readers of your fellow blogger).

Networking

Social networking is high on agenda these days. Spend good amount of time developing your social network profiles. Focus on google plus, twitter and facebook. As a basic guideline, do the following:

Follow the big guys in your field.

Share, like, retweet and plus one their useful content.

Follow back people who follow you (other than blatant spammers).

Use hashtags.

Leave useful comment on content shared by others.

Wednesday – writing day

On Wednesday, spend time on your long term projects. Create a part of your next pillar post. Write a page of your next ebook. Create a video for your next video course.

Do only a small part each week, but do it regularly. Slowly but surely, you will be ready to launch your next ebook or video course.

Thursday – outline day

The process of creating the next post starts on Thursday. Firstly spend some time to decide your next topic. Go through your list of post ideas if you have one. Also ask yourself “Did I encounter something interesting this week? Can I write a post on it?”.

For example, suppose Google releases some new feature which you feel other bloggers might find useful. Why not blog about it? Recently the “mobile friendly” tag started appearing in Search Engine Results in Google. I know quite a few bloggers who wrote detailed post on the topic. Those posts became quite popular too.

Once you have decided on the topic, create an outline for the post. Do some research on the topic. Come up with your own points. Jot down the main points in form of headers and subheaders. Write down a working title. Also, chalk down the possible ways to start and end the post.

That is it for Thursday. You have enough material to start writing your post on Sunday.

Friday – maintenance day

Friday is your maintenance cum backup day. On the maintenance front, do the following:

Check if any updates are available for your plugins and theme.

Backup your database and keep them safe.

Keep an eye on the server uptime and your host performance over the week.

Changes to site design, adding widgets and similar work are supposed to be done on maintenance day.

Set up and modify your autoresponders if you need.

Analyze your analytics data.

Analyze your email list data.

These are some of the things you can do on the maintenance front.

If you have any backlogs, clear it on Friday.

Saturday – relaxation day

Everybody needs a rest. For a part time blogger, it is even more important. As a part time blogger, you have to work long hours every day. Firstly, you have your all important day job which takes more than 8 hours of work a day. And then you are essentially doing a double shift by working on your blog (which is why I suggest you not too spend too much time on your blog).

So, to avoid a burn out, make sure you have enough rest. Get enough sleep every day. And take a break from all type of work on Saturday. Avoid the laptop and the internet if possible. Just take your mind off it totally. Only check your email once or twice a day to reply to important emails.

After all, what’s better than getting good rest before working on creating great content the next day?

Daily tasks for a blogger:

Apart from these, there are three other tasks that you have to do on a daily basis.

First of them is to regularly read and leave meaningful comments on related blogs. Select 10 blogs related to your field and be a regular commenter on those blogs.

Second task is related to building connections. Share and like useful content from other blogs in your field. Use like, tweet and plus one liberally. Reply to questions on social media.

Thirdly, do not forget to regularly check and moderate comments on your blog.

Conclusion

Did you find my schedule useful? Let me know in the comments sections. If you have any other suggestions that can help your fellow readers to manage time in a better way, feel free to share below.

I honestly read your post [Blogging time table for part time blogger] out of curiosity, and must say its nifty and impressive too, to boot. It is simple, very detailed, has a summary time table, and extremely easy to follow or stick to. Besides it also states the very things a blogger needs pay attention to.

Hi AJ
Glad you liked it. I always felt that one of the hardest things for a blogger is to work in an organized manner. That is why I came up with this post. I am happy that people are being benefited from it. Keep visiting my blog, I always try to come up with such useful pieces.